Here goes, my first PTR.....*UPDATE 9/27* only one day left!!

[exwdwcm]

Welcome to my PTR It's not as organized as yours appears to be, I took a glance and am hoping to get caught up on it soon. Love the links on your first post
Thanks for the tip about Sci-Fi. It's our second time there, but my cousin's first so they would prefer a car I'm sure. I will make sure to request that when we check in for our meal that day.
I think I'm leaning toward doing the reveal on Father's Day, and maybe have the final clue at my Dad's house so he can enjoy the look on the kids' faces as well. The next day will be 100 days out from the trip and we could build our 100-day chain that day too (or I might have pieces of it strung together with the clues?!)

the reveal on father's day sounds like a lot of fun! I bet your dad would love seeing their faces!

love all your ADRS, it looks like a great plan. We are doing a lot of the same restaurants actually! Hoop Dee Doo is a favorite of my family! DH and aren't doing it since he isn't big on shows, but i think he's seen it 3x with us. lol. I've seen it on every family trip except this last one with DH. If we go with my family (parents, sisters), we always see it. They now do this tiered seating plan, so you have to pay more to sit up front on the first floor. We always lucked out with great seats, front and center. They have an upstairs part too- that is usually the third tier/level, but you still have a decent view since it isn't a huge hall anyhow. They do have guest participation in the show and my sister was picked one year to be a dancing girl. My BIL and niece were picked one year too and my dad also got some special attention in the audience from one of the ladies too. It is a fun show, great music and lots of laughs. The food isn't bad either. We love the all you can drink sangria and beer!

 

[Macduffy]

Joining.... I love canadians and planners and you're both LOL!!!

I can't wait to hear how your party of 10 ADR's go. Family is talking about coming with us next time but I'm a little aprehensive about it b/c I'm a bit of a control freak and wonder how I'd do with so many people.

 

[MARsMama]

the reveal on father's day sounds like a lot of fun! I bet your dad would love seeing their faces!

love all your ADRS, it looks like a great plan. We are doing a lot of the same restaurants actually! Hoop Dee Doo is a favorite of my family! DH and aren't doing it since he isn't big on shows, but i think he's seen it 3x with us. lol. I've seen it on every family trip except this last one with DH. If we go with my family (parents, sisters), we always see it. They now do this tiered seating plan, so you have to pay more to sit up front on the first floor. We always lucked out with great seats, front and center. They have an upstairs part too- that is usually the third tier/level, but you still have a decent view since it isn't a huge hall anyhow. They do have guest participation in the show and my sister was picked one year to be a dancing girl. My BIL and niece were picked one year too and my dad also got some special attention in the audience from one of the ladies too. It is a fun show, great music and lots of laughs. The food isn't bad either. We love the all you can drink sangria and beer!

Well, I'm not sure I will be able to wait until Father's Day for the big reaveal. I'm not even sure I can wait and do a scavenger hunt. I am itching to tell the kids and kick up the planning into high gear!!! lol My cousin and her dh told their kids and I'm thinking I might blurt it out one of these days, no fanfare, no planning, no anything!!

We're booked on level one for HDDR. I'm not big on attention, so I'm hoping that with nine others I'll be less likely to get noticed!!

Joining.... I love canadians and planners and you're both LOL!!!

I can't wait to hear how your party of 10 ADR's go. Family is talking about coming with us next time but I'm a little aprehensive about it b/c I'm a bit of a control freak and wonder how I'd do with so many people.

Welcome to my PTR. I haven't done much planning lately, but hoping that in the next few weeks things will pick up. I've been working feverishly on the kids' scrapbooks of our '09 trip, hoping to have them done before this trip. I finished the boys' just need to get dd's done. I'm also wanting to complete our family one, but we'll see on that one!

Traveling with others can be a tricky undertaking when you're a control freak, which I am too, but I'm thinking things will go well with my cousin and her family.....they're the only ones I'd chance it with though! lol

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Go ahead, blurt it out, you know you'll feel better!!! (this is coming from an official blurter, of course!)

 

[MARsMama]

Well, I think we've decided to blurt it out and save the scavenger hunt for one of the Disney days that we're going to do over the summer. We realized that just telling them is the only way for them to find out all together as AR is too young to read a note and MJ will pick up on it the fastest. This way they'll all hear it at the same time
As for when I am not sure yet! MJ is heading to camp for two nights and we're preparing for that, not to mention Dh won't be home until after she's gone. So the soonest we could tell them is this Sunday. I was thinking of waiting until we get the trip paid off, but there's no telling how long it'll take for the income tax return to decide to come!

I made my first trip purchase today....the transfers from amymickey Can't wait for them to arrive and to start making the t-shirts!!!!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

oooh, you just reminded me that I need to get on the ball with getting transfers and tshirts! I made a list a while back but then didn't do anything with it since I was determined to save for our tickets first.

 

[MARsMama]

I'm still waiting for the transfers to arrive, so no t-shirts have been made yet. I'm getting excited to make them though.

Life update....I am finally catching up on things around here as I've been away from the boards for a bit. Not much Disney planning either, aside from the reveal decision (see below) I do a lot of volunteering and have been swamped with paperwork, and meetings. With school and activities coming to a close soon this overload will slow down a bit. I also became and Avon representative, so I've been familiarizing myself with that.

The reveal has finally been decided and the process has begun! We are making a countdown chain with the kids, each day they're putting on chains and numbering them. They each have their own color so when they come off they will take turns and when it's the day for their color they will take that link off! However, they have no idea what the chain is for yet. We told them we will tell them when the chain is all done. They are super curious and anxious to find out what it's for. Once they get enough links on it for how many days we have left until the trip we'll tell them what it's for and let them start taking the links off. We are aiming for 110, which will put us on June 10, but we might shorten it to June 5 at 115 links. I want it on one of those days as I'm thinking we'll take them our to supper, with the gift cards I received on Mother's Day, to celebrate, but to have the buffet we'll have to go on a Friday or Sunday as that's the only times it's offered. Buffet is where we'll get the most for out money, or in this case gift cards!

Now that it's been decided I'm excited and can't wait to kick the Disney planning up a notch!!

 

[PixieMama]

So they know they're going somewhere, but don't know yet that it's to WDW... how fun!

I really wanted to surprise our DDs with our trip last year. We had no intention of a trip to WDW last year... that is, until my DH got an email with a Free Dining PIN code. For the week of Fall Break. The same week that his brother was thinking about taking his family. DH and I talked it over and decided we'd go, too! We didn't tell the girls for about 2 days... that's all I could handle, LOL! I was bursting to tell them!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

What a cute idea! I can't wait to hear how the reveal goes!!

 

[MissStitch626]

That's such a cute idea for the reveal! You should have a camera ready for when you tell them where they are going just so you have picture of their faces

 

[exwdwcm]

Your new reveal plan sounds great with the countdown chain! i don't know how you have kept it a secret this long, it would drive me nuts to not be able to tell them - so you are doing good! can't wait to hear how it goes when you finally share the news and can't wait to see your t-shirts either!

 

[MARsMama]

There's 46 links on the chain so far, and 120 days 'til we leave for Disney....so a bit to go yet! lol

No, they have no idea that the chain is even about going somewhere, just that when the chain is done I'll tell them what it's for! I've told them we're making it for the Christmas tree just to tease them, they didn't believe it at first, but now I think they're thinking of it!

Got the transfer papers in the mail!!!! Now I just need to figure out how to do it, and find the time as well!

 

[MARsMama]

We did it!!!! We told the kids!!! They screamed, cried, and were in disbelief, but now they are super excited and can't stop talking about it!! They won't find out about their cousins going until we go visit them in two weeks and tell the kids all together, that will be the icing on the cake

The reveal.....
We started making a 'contdown' chain with the kids a few weeks ago. Each kid would put on a numbered link in their chosen color. The amount of links varied, but mostly were two per day. Once they were at 110 links we had 110 days left until our trip, so we told them the chain was finished. Since it was finished I wanted to take a photo of them with it. Once I got their photo, Dh took the camera and proceeded to video while I told them what the chain was for. They thought he was just taking more photos, so they weren't even suspicious as to why we were videoing! It was a priceless moment, and now we are going to start our 'must do' list for each park.
MJ was really excited that she will be in Disney on her birthday, but we are leaving it a surprise that we're having her birthday supper in the castle.

Yesterday the kids made Mickey Head saving charts for their spending money that they want to save. MJ and AR each have $10 US, and RT already has $50 US (he changed in some of his Can money from our savings as soon as he found out!)

Now that I can step up the planning, hopefully I'll be on the boards more often so I don't fall behind! We are planning on doing the paperwork and photos for our passports before we head to my cousins, so we can stop them off on the way and save a special trip up.

We've done one t-shirt so far. Turned out pretty good, but we put the design on too low, so I got another shirt and we're gonna try again. Hopefully soon will have them done and can post pictures!!

 

[Lidian]

Where's the video?



Sounds like everything went off without a hitch! Glad it all went so well!

Can't wait to hear more planning, and to hear about the full family trip with the cousins!!

 

[MissStitch626]

I am in awe - there's no way I could have kept a secret long enough to do a reveal like that!

Seconding the call to see video/pics! The looks on their faces must have been worth all that planning.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Wooohooo! Sounds like the reveal went off well! I MUST see pics and video!!

 

[MARsMama]

I'll try and get the photos off the camera and onto the computer tomorrow. Then put them on photobucket, so I can post them here! As for the video, I have no idea whatsoever how to post a video....I thought I was doing well being able to post pictures!

 

[Lidian]

I'll try and get the photos off the camera and onto the computer tomorrow. Then put them on photobucket, so I can post them here! As for the video, I have no idea whatsoever how to post a video....I thought I was doing well being able to post pictures!

FYI: You can upload videos to Photobucket (and post it just like pics). It's what I did.

Can't wait to see!!!

 

[MARsMama]

Well, I'm slow at getting the photos up, but finally did it. I don't have any of the actual reveal as Dh was using the camera to video. I've been trying to upload the video to photobucket, but it's not working for some reason....maybe too long?!

Here's one of the kids with their completed link (which now has 6 links removed)

Here's the one of them with their savings charts that they made the next day. Of course, RT has the most money so far, he's the saver in the bunch!

 

[MARsMama]

Now that the kids know about the trip and are all excited about the planning, we decided it was time to sit down and find out just what they want to do for each park.
We started with Epcot and here's what we came up with...

'Must do' list:
Spaceship Earth (never done)
Mission:Space, mild (never done)
Test Track
Soarin'
Kim Possible Adventure (never done)
IllumiNations

To do if time permits, list:
Ellen's Energy Adventure (never done)
The Seas with Nemo
Living with the Land (it's one I really want to do so I just may bump it to the 'must do' list!)
Grand Fiesta Tour
Maelstrom (never done)
O Canada (never done and being from Canada we thought we'd like to see it)
we also picked a few things from Innovations East and West to try if time allows.

'Not doing' list:
Turtle Talk with Crush (never done)
Circle of Life (never done)
Journey into Imagination with Figment (I thought they'd like to do this again, but not one of them wanted to)
Reflections of China (never done)
The American Adventure (never done)
Impressions of France (never done)....while I would like to see these films I thought it would be too hard to keep the interest of the kids enough to enjoy them, in particular my 6 y/o!

So, anything on our 'must-do' list you wouldn't do again? How about the 'not doing' list you just have to do? As for the 'if there's time' list, we have three days scheduled for Epcot, so it's likely we'll get to do atleast some of what's on that list.